09 | 02 | 2018

Study on Deposit Systems for Audiovisual Works

Photo: Freeimages.com/José A. Warletta

In cooperation with the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published the first joint study that enables an overview of the regulatory framework of deposit systems (storage) for audiovisual works in certain EU Member States, originally titled Deposit systems for audiovisual works.

It is evident from the study that deposit systems play today an important role in preserving national cultural heritage, but also in enforcing intellectual property rights. Namely, depositing of copyright-protected works provides more legal certainty to rights holders in proving their rights, in particular in terms of court procedures. Attention is also drawn to the significant potential of digital deposit systems today for copyright-protected works and other protected content.

The study provides an insight into the international and European regulatory framework in this field and into various deposit systems established for copyright-protected works, such as public deposit systems (depositing by national authorities, mainly state intellectual property offices or responsible ministries), private deposit systems (depositing offered by private companies or organisations) and depositing by collective management organisations. The study also points out the challenges that institutions and other depositing entities face today, and that derive from the digital environment. The study focuses on depositing of audiovisual works and it covers a variety of deposit systems that may be of relevance exactly for this sector. 12 EU member states were covered by the study (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Deposit systems established in order to preserve cultural film heritage exist in all the 12 countries covered by the survey. Research results for each one of these countries are provided in the third chapter of this study.

In addition hereto, the study describes umbrella organisations in the field of audiovisual heritage preservation at European and international level, providing an insight into concrete examples of copyright infringements from court litigation as well as initiatives at EU level in this field.